What is "Social Media"? Social media is the capacity of people to interact with, create, share, exchange and discuss ideas across an online network. Over the last decade, it has become the fastest-growing sector of activity on the Internet. People usually think social media is just Facebook, but the term applies to a much larger sphere of data. Social media is not just our interactions with one another online, but is also “user-generated content.” User-generated content, or UGC, sometimes also referred to as “citizen media” or “new media,” can be many things. Prose, music, video, independent research—anything created by someone and published online (by the person/people who created it) it is user-generated content and “social media.”
Why is it a valuable source of research data? Social media gives researchers access to raw human data that often can’t be found in simple statistics or library/archive searches. It is generally less formal than traditionally published data or media, but can often be just as professional.
When should you use Social Media data? Social media data is best used in larger research works as supplementary data. Supplementary data can be anecdotal findings that back up larger points expressed by ‘hard’ data (statistics, facts, ect.). It can also be used to highlight the 'human factor' or research narratives. This is data that relies on personal input and is usually seen in oral histories, case studies, and ethnographies. Social media data can also be used for examining developing social trends. Because it can provide an aggregate of cultural opinions or viewpoints, social media is a great resource of examining targeted time-specific social data, such as current cultural perspectives, political movements, or items from popular culture, such as television, literature, fashion, or celebrity trends.
Things to Know About Social Media
Pros & Cons
Advantages
Scalable Sample Size: Your research sample size can be as vast or as focused as you need it to be. Depending on the scope of your research, you can examine social media data from around the world, around the country, or from your local community. Many topic-specific social spheres exist, on blogs, forums, Facebook groups, ect. Interactivity: Social media data gives you direct access human subjects. You can interact directly with your research subjects, letting you gain further data on your topic through direct interviews, correspondence, or commentary. It is a great resource for human data if your are doing ethographic research. Predictive Potential: By observing developing social media trends, you can can use your data in a forward-looking way to make predictions or estimates on research subjects. Established or developing social media patterns can be used to create predictive models.
Disadvantages
Timeliness: Social media data and trends are constantly evolving; data that was current yesterday may be out of date by tomorrow. Due to the 24 hour nature of the Internet, current events data is may be in constant flux as new details emerge. Subjectivity: You will often be dealing with people's opinions, especially when using data from blogs, Facebook, or Twitter. Reliability / Bias: Some data from social media resources may be inaccurate or intentionally deceptive. Always evaluate the trustworthiness of your source. Research your research. Use disclaimers and keep your audience informed on the nature of your sources. Privacy: Be aware that you may be violating others' privacy by using social media data, even if the data is already publicly available online. Always seek permission and consent from the subject or original rights holder before using their data in your research work. Remember, privacy concerns are a two-way street. Always read the privacy policies of social media sites and be informed of what information they are recording about you and who they are sharing it with. For more information visit:
What are most common social media resources available?
Facebook
Facebook is the most popular social networking site in the world. Users register with Facebook to set up a profile and connect with friends. They can also receive updates from different interest groups, fan pages, or companies they like. Companies set up their own pages to inform Facebook users following them of any problems, new products or events coming up. It is useful for research in that it is updated almost immediately. You may also poll your friends with research questions to receive quick feedback from your peers. Another way to utilize Facebook is to make a page for your topic. Facebook users interested in the same topic can add comments, link information they found useful, add pictures, and share the page to friends that may also have more information. Additionally, when companies or public features do make big announcements, usually there are links to a direct press release or newspaper article that would have more detailed information. Facebook also supports a variety of apps you can search though that may help you collect more information from your peers.
Twitter
Unlike Facebook, anyone can view twitter feeds without signing up for their own account. Twitter is an excellent source of the most up to date information, and to find critiques on a subject from a wide variety of people around the world. There are regularly updated message feeds from all sorts of sources, celebrities, companies, news outlets, police stations, and politicians being the most common ones. Often quotes on current events or topics can be found on Twitter, just make sure the account you are citing is verified if it is a public figure. Verified accounts are denoted by a blue check-mark next to the username. Users often follow their tweets with hashtags (words preceded by the #-sign, ex: #socialmedia) that include keywords or phrases making it easier to search for relevant tweets to your research.
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that is open for users to add, update, or change the entries. Because of this collaborative effort, Wikipedia can be an excellent source of information, but there is a chance that some information may be biased or false. However, if you find a fact on a Wikipedia page that seems useful to your research, the references are listed so that you can verify or find similar information directly from the source. There are also integrated links in the articles so that you do not have to go looking for related entries, they are right there.
YouTube
YouTube lets users share videos or broadcast video content to the entire Internet. YouTube is part of Google's vast network of websites and its services are linked with your generic Google user account. However, you do not need an account to search through its databases. There are many informational and instructional videos on the site; videos from events, or even videos from major media corporations. For example, If there was an interview on BBC you wanted to see, you would be able to find the video footage on YouTube through the BBC's own YouTube channel. Be warned, however, not every video on YouTube is in compliance with modern copyright laws, such as the United States' Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and YouTube will routinely take down content that is in violation of these laws.
Blogs
Many bloggers are experts in their chosen field of interest of study. You can find blogs on nearly any topic you can think of. The best way to find these blogs is through targeted Google searches, or by using the internal search features of popular blogging services such as LiveJournal, Blogger (which is run by Google itself), and WordPress. You may find an entire blog on your research subject, or a variety of entries from different blogs offering an array of information. Most often, blogs will allow comments on entries which allows you to see other peoples thoughts on the entries, or any extra information someone might mention. Additionally, many blogs will have a search feature built in as well, so that you can quickly pull out any entries that are relevant to what you are looking for.
How to Search Social Media
Facebook
Facebook Search Bar: You can use the Facebook integrated search bar, powered by Microsoft's Bing search engine, to search for people or pages on Facebook. When you enter a search on Facebook, the results are organized into people, pages, groups, apps, and events. It even includes an option to continue your topic search on the general Internet through Bing to find even more results. This helps you to find the most relevant information, instead of just whichever pages are most popular.
The Facebook search bar can be found at the top of any Facebook page. Simply enter your query in the text field and press "Enter.”
The results are displayed through a drop-down window and can be expanded at your leasure.
Twitter
The Trending Bar: Twitter has a section on the left side of the page which shows the top worldwide trends. You may refine this to your specific country or city, and so it will show you what the hottest topics are in your area. If you click on one of the trends, it will bring you to the aggregate feed of that topic, which shows what everyone on Twitter has said about it.
An example of the top trends from Thursday January 24, 2013. The top two results relate to the speculation just prior to the offical annoucement by the Walt Disney Company that J.J. Abrams was to direct the upcoming Star Wars Episode VII.
Twitter SimpleSearch: You can also search for topics directly through Twitter's "simple search" feature. The simple search lets you enter keywords or hashtags and receive results organized by either relevance or popularity. Results are updated in real time, so if the topic you are searching for is a popular one, or pertaining to a current event, you may find you results being constantly updated with new tweets as you browse.
The Twitter search bar is visible at the top of the screen once you log in to your Twitter account.
An example of a search conducted for "social media". Note the "20 new tweets" update at the top of the page.
Additional Tools: Trendsmap.com is a site dedicated to organizing these trends by location. You can use the real-time updating map to see what is being tweeted about and where. It is good for analyzing social media patterns on a geographical level.
TweetDeck is an application designed to expand the scope of simple Twitter operations and is an invaluable resource if you want to conduct tightly focused Twitter searches. It allows you to link multiple Twitter accounts, preform focused searching with specialized search filters, and save specific searches and search results among other features. TweeDeck is available for both Mac and Windows desktop operating systems, and for mobile devices as well, with apps for both Apple iOS and Android operating systems.
Wikipedia
Wiki Search Bar: Wikipedia's internal search bar is another "simple search" feature which responds to keyword searches. Rather than listing results, searches on Wikipedia will direct you instantly to the article it believes to be the closest match to your query. For example: if you were to plug in "Social Media" into the Wikipedia search bar and press enter, Wikipedia will bring up the page for social media immediately.
The Wikipedia search bar, seen at the top right of every Wikipedia page.
Be advised, however, Wikipedia's internal search bar does not account for nor correct spelling errors, like a Google search will. It will instead offer suggestions for corrected spellings on another page.
Disambiguation Pages: When dealing with topics where there may be multiple pages with the same or similar names, Wikipedia offers links to "disambiguation" pages to help you refine your search. These pages contain categorized links to nearly every other page in Wikipedia's database that shares a name with or may be related to your current page. For example: the disambiguation page for "Sparrow." It contains links to pages for the various species of sparrow, for people (real and fictional) named Sparrow, technologies named after the sparrow, media properties containing the word "sparrow," and ships named Sparrow.
Further Reading: Below the list of references for the article, often Wikipedia will add a section titled Further Reading. This contains a list of books and articles on the same subject. Often, these references are styled in MLA citation format, allowing you to easily locate relevant data in said books and articles.
The Wikimedia family of websites.
Sister Projects: Wikipedia has a number of sister projects that contain more specific information through the Wikimedia project. For example Wikiquote is a database of quotes related to your subject. Wikinews has relevant news articles and Wikimedia Commons is a database of images licensed for fair use under Creative Commons (see below). Wikisource has links to academic articles and databases with relevant articles to your topic as well. For more information on searching academic journals, please visit Searching Academic Databases on this wiki.
YouTube
Google-style search:YouTube's internal search engine operates on a similar set of rules to its parent site, Google's. It responds to keywords and brings up what its algorithms judge to be relevant videos to your search, displaying the results on a refinable page. If your subject doesn't produce the results you are looking for, there are filter options similar to Google's own filters that appear under the search bar. There you are given various options to refine your search and find the video your are looking for.
As you can clearly see above, searching YouTube for "social media" nets roughly 1.18 million results. To narrow your results you can specify parameters such as how long ago the video was uploaded, whether you would like to see individal videos or entire channels (user pages) or playlists of videos, and running times. You can also structure your results by upload date, popularity, ratings, ect.
General Search Engines: As mundane as it may seem these days, the best resources for finding and searching through blogs and forums are through simple search engines queries. A fool-proof strategy for finding relevant blogs or forums is it use keyword searches in search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo!. Enter your topic keyword, followed by a comma and the name or domain name of major blogging site (LiveJournal, Tumblr, Wordpress, and Blogger are currently the four most widely used blogging services), and the search engine's optimization algorithm will produce targeted results which you can refine even further from there.
Google results for the search "harry potter, livejournal".
As you can see in the image above, the search for "harry potter, livejournal" produces results from the blogging service LiveJournal, specifically blogs related to J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter book (and film) series. Results are usually ordered in terms of the most popular and/or most recently updated blogs.
Internal SearchEngines: Nearly every blogging site has its own internal search engine set up specifically to produce results from within its own database. These internalized search engines function like hybrids of the Google and Wikipedia search engines, using simple keyword searches to produce lists of blogs or blog communities. They vary in terms of their scalability and features, however. Wordpress also does not have an internal search feature, while Blogger's is only accessible to registered and logged in users.
Creative Commons Licence Types
Creative Commons Licences and Websites
Creative Commons is a type of copyright license that allows you to use images, video, music, writing, or other data for non-profit purposes. Usually found on user-generated content, Creative Commons licenses claim to balance copyright laws with the realities of the Internet. Creative Commons licensed content is free-to-use by anyone, and can be used as supplementary data or source material for research projects, with appropriate attributions and citations, of course. You can learn more about the various types of Creative Commons licenses and their uses on their license page.
Many of the images used on this page, for example, are licensed under the Creative Commons "Attribution Non-Commercial" licence. The circular icons used in the header image were provided by Veodesign while the button images with social media logos were provided by sawb.
Partner Projects: Many websites are partnered with Creative Commons and support Creative Commons licenses. Wikipedia, Flickr, SoundCloud, YouTube, and Project Gutenberg, as well as thousands of other sites support and host CC licensed works and can be searched for relevant data using their internal search features.
Search Creative Commons: The Creative Commons website has a built-in search feature that lets you search social media websites for user-generated free-to-use content for use in your research.
How to Cite Social Media Data
When citing social media data in academic reports, follow these examples based on the various types of social media you are are employing as data. We will be highlighting only the Modern Language Association (MLA) and American Psychological Association (APA) citation formats, as they are the two most widely used citation styles in modern universities. For information Chicago Manual of Style citation format, please consult the CMoS website.
Facebook
APA:
Facebook Name. (Date posted). Full post (include links for events created) [Facebook update]. retrieved from Url of page.
MLA:
Last name, First name. “ quote full post”. Facebook (Italics). Facebook. Date posted. Web. Date retrieved. <Url of page>.
Last name, First name ( screen name). “Quote full tweet.” Date, Time. Tweet.
Wikipedia
APA:
Title of entry. (n.d.). In encyclopedia name. Retrieved date, from url
MLA:
“Title” Online Source Title. Publisher. Date last modified. Web.Date accessed. <url of article>
YouTube
APA:
Creator name. (date uploaded). title [Video file]. Retrieved from url of video.
MLA:
User name. "Title of Video." Name of Website. Publisher, Date Uploaded. Medium. Date Accessed. <Source URL>
Blogs
APA:
Last name, First Initial of first name. (date posted). Title of post.[Web log post]. Title of blog. Message posted to Url.
MLA:
Last Name, First Name (or Username). "Post Title.” Name of Site. Version number (if available). Name of institution/organization affiliated with the site (sponsor or publisher). Medium of publication. Date of access. Editor, screen name, author, or compiler name (if available).
Here are some additional social media services that might be of help to you as you conduct your research online. These sites may not be as large or well known as Facebook, Twitter, or Wikipedia, but they are no less valuable sources of data for you to explore in your research.
Reddit
Billing itself as the "front page of the Internet," Reddit is a large-scale online community website modeled after the old-style Internet message boards that were popular during the late 90’s and early 00’s. The site is divided into many “sub-Reddits,” each dedicated to a particular topic. Popular sub-Reddits include r/Politics, r/Pics, and r/Gaming—subforums dedicated to, as their names might suggest, political discussion, photography, and video games. Reddit is a great source for both ethnographic and human interest data, as well as for tracking social trends and reaction to breaking news events.
Reddit is known for both its free-wheeling discussion and as a source of community information and involvement. The site has popularized the “Ask Me Anything” or “AMA”-style threads. AMAs are question and answer threads where a person with something of interest to discuss will post responses to questions from the Reddit community. Many celebrities have used AMAs to connect with fans, promote upcoming projects, or simply to discuss topics of general interest to others. You can find a list of the top 500 AMAs here on the Reddit Blog.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a social media site geared towards developing your career. The site operates on the axiom, “it’s not what you know, but who you know.” Your LinkedIn profile functions like a combination of a digital business card and resume. You can build connections to professionals in various fields. For research purposes, you can use LinkedIn to examine who is doing what in what field of expertise and then get in contact with them for possible interviews or expert testimony to back up your research data.
Pinterest
Pinterest is an imageboard service that lets users link to various websites using images as digital posters or advertisements. You can search through thousands of images to get both visual and textual data for your research. Many images on Pinterest are free-to-use under Creative Commons, as well.
Tumblr
Tumblr is a microblogging service similar to Wordpress. Its key feature is its interactivity, however. Much like Reddit and Twitter, Tumblr users can conduct discussions with one another through their Tumblrs and share images and text with others. Tumblr has become the go-to blogging service for many artists. Finding visual data for research is easy with Tumblr by using hashtag keywords like you would on Twitter. Be warned, however, while a lot of content on Tumblr is licensed under Creative Commons, much of it is not. Be sure to contact the owner of the Tumblr and get their permission before using any of their material in your research.
Flickr
Operated by Yahoo!, Flickr is an image-hosting service that lets users place highly detailed images online for sharing with others, or for private usage. Like Tumblr and Pinterest, Flickr supports Creative Commons licenses, but as mentioned already, always contact the original owner of the image for permission before using their data in your research. Flickr has its own internal search engine which is also capable of searching specifically for Creative Commons-licensed images and searching through the Getty Images database for royalty-free stock photos.
MySpace MySpace, once king of the realm of social media, has declined in popularity since the rise of Facebook. However, in recent years it has reformatted itself into a haven for artists and musicians thanks to an effort spearheaded by Justin Timberlake. On MySpace you can find both musical data and information on bands and musicians, as well as have a direct connection to the artists themselves—a great resource of if you are doing research on the music industry and independent media. Much like Flickr and Twitter, MySpace has both an internal search feature and a trending panel to help you search through its database for relevant information.
Good luck, and happy searching! anecdotal findings that back up larger points expressed by ‘hard’ data.
Introduction
Table of Contents
Social media is the capacity of people to interact with, create, share, exchange and discuss ideas across an online network. Over the last decade, it has become the fastest-growing sector of activity on the Internet.
People usually think social media is just Facebook, but the term applies to a much larger sphere of data. Social media is not just our interactions with one another online, but is also “user-generated content.” User-generated content, or UGC, sometimes also referred to as “citizen media” or “new media,” can be many things. Prose, music, video, independent research—anything created by someone and published online (by the person/people who created it) it is user-generated content and “social media.”
Why is it a valuable source of research data?
Social media gives researchers access to raw human data that often can’t be found in simple statistics or library/archive searches. It is generally less formal than traditionally published data or media, but can often be just as professional.
When should you use Social Media data?
Social media data is best used in larger research works as supplementary data. Supplementary data can be anecdotal findings that back up larger points expressed by ‘hard’ data (statistics, facts, ect.). It can also be used to highlight the 'human factor' or research narratives. This is data that relies on personal input and is usually seen in oral histories, case studies, and ethnographies.
Social media data can also be used for examining developing social trends. Because it can provide an aggregate of cultural opinions or viewpoints, social media is a great resource of examining targeted time-specific social data, such as current cultural perspectives, political movements, or items from popular culture, such as television, literature, fashion, or celebrity trends.
Things to Know About Social Media
Pros & Cons
Advantages
Scalable Sample Size: Your research sample size can be as vast or as focused as you need it to be. Depending on the scope of your research, you can examine social media data from around the world, around the country, or from your local community. Many topic-specific social spheres exist, on blogs, forums, Facebook groups, ect.Interactivity: Social media data gives you direct access human subjects. You can interact directly with your research subjects, letting you gain further data on your topic through direct interviews, correspondence, or commentary. It is a great resource for human data if your are doing ethographic research.
Predictive Potential: By observing developing social media trends, you can can use your data in a forward-looking way to make predictions or estimates on research subjects. Established or developing social media patterns can be used to create predictive models.
Disadvantages
Timeliness: Social media data and trends are constantly evolving; data that was current yesterday may be out of date by tomorrow. Due to the 24 hour nature of the Internet, current events data is may be in constant flux as new details emerge.Subjectivity: You will often be dealing with people's opinions, especially when using data from blogs, Facebook, or Twitter.
Reliability / Bias: Some data from social media resources may be inaccurate or intentionally deceptive. Always evaluate the trustworthiness of your source. Research your research. Use disclaimers and keep your audience informed on the nature of your sources.
Privacy: Be aware that you may be violating others' privacy by using social media data, even if the data is already publicly available online. Always seek permission and consent from the subject or original rights holder before using their data in your research work. Remember, privacy concerns are a two-way street. Always read the privacy policies of social media sites and be informed of what information they are recording about you and who they are sharing it with.
For more information visit:
What are most common social media resources available?
Facebook
Facebook is the most popular social networking site in the world. Users register with Facebook to set up a profile and connect with friends. They can also receive updates from different interest groups, fan pages, or companies they like. Companies set up their own pages to inform Facebook users following them of any problems, new products or events coming up. It is useful for research in that it is updated almost immediately. You may also poll your friends with research questions to receive quick feedback from your peers. Another way to utilize Facebook is to make a page for your topic. Facebook users interested in the same topic can add comments, link information they found useful, add pictures, and share the page to friends that may also have more information. Additionally, when companies or public features do make big announcements, usually there are links to a direct press release or newspaper article that would have more detailed information. Facebook also supports a variety of apps you can search though that may help you collect more information from your peers.
Twitter
Unlike Facebook, anyone can view twitter feeds without signing up for their own account. Twitter is an excellent source of the most up to date information, and to find critiques on a subject from a wide variety of people around the world. There are regularly updated message feeds from all sorts of sources, celebrities, companies, news outlets, police stations, and politicians being the most common ones. Often quotes on current events or topics can be found on Twitter, just make sure the account you are citing is verified if it is a public figure. Verified accounts are denoted by a blue check-mark next to the username. Users often follow their tweets with hashtags (words preceded by the #-sign, ex: #socialmedia) that include keywords or phrases making it easier to search for relevant tweets to your research.
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that is open for users to add, update, or change the entries. Because of this collaborative effort, Wikipedia can be an excellent source of information, but there is a chance that some information may be biased or false. However, if you find a fact on a Wikipedia page that seems useful to your research, the references are listed so that you can verify or find similar information directly from the source. There are also integrated links in the articles so that you do not have to go looking for related entries, they are right there.YouTube
YouTube lets users share videos or broadcast video content to the entire Internet. YouTube is part of Google's vast network of websites and its services are linked with your generic Google user account. However, you do not need an account to search through its databases. There are many informational and instructional videos on the site; videos from events, or even videos from major media corporations. For example, If there was an interview on BBC you wanted to see, you would be able to find the video footage on YouTube through the BBC's own YouTube channel. Be warned, however, not every video on YouTube is in compliance with modern copyright laws, such as the United States' Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and YouTube will routinely take down content that is in violation of these laws.
Blogs
Many bloggers are experts in their chosen field of interest of study. You can find blogs on nearly any topic you can think of. The best way to find these blogs is through targeted Google searches, or by using the internal search features of popular blogging services such as LiveJournal, Blogger (which is run by Google itself), and WordPress. You may find an entire blog on your research subject, or a variety of entries from different blogs offering an array of information. Most often, blogs will allow comments on entries which allows you to see other peoples thoughts on the entries, or any extra information someone might mention. Additionally, many blogs will have a search feature built in as well, so that you can quickly pull out any entries that are relevant to what you are looking for.How to Search Social Media
Facebook
Facebook Search Bar: You can use the Facebook integrated search bar, powered by Microsoft's Bing search engine, to search for people or pages on Facebook. When you enter a search on Facebook, the results are organized into people, pages, groups, apps, and events. It even includes an option to continue your topic search on the general Internet through Bing to find even more results. This helps you to find the most relevant information, instead of just whichever pages are most popular.Twitter
The Trending Bar: Twitter has a section on the left side of the page which shows the top worldwide trends. You may refine this to your specific country or city, and so it will show you what the hottest topics are in your area. If you click on one of the trends, it will bring you to the aggregate feed of that topic, which shows what everyone on Twitter has said about it.Twitter Simple Search: You can also search for topics directly through Twitter's "simple search" feature. The simple search lets you enter keywords or hashtags and receive results organized by either relevance or popularity. Results are updated in real time, so if the topic you are searching for is a popular one, or pertaining to a current event, you may find you results being constantly updated with new tweets as you browse.
Additional Tools:
Trendsmap.com is a site dedicated to organizing these trends by location. You can use the real-time updating map to see what is being tweeted about and where. It is good for analyzing social media patterns on a geographical level.
TweetDeck is an application designed to expand the scope of simple Twitter operations and is an invaluable resource if you want to conduct tightly focused Twitter searches. It allows you to link multiple Twitter accounts, preform focused searching with specialized search filters, and save specific searches and search results among other features. TweeDeck is available for both Mac and Windows desktop operating systems, and for mobile devices as well, with apps for both Apple iOS and Android operating systems.
Wikipedia
Wiki Search Bar: Wikipedia's internal search bar is another "simple search" feature which responds to keyword searches. Rather than listing results, searches on Wikipedia will direct you instantly to the article it believes to be the closest match to your query. For example: if you were to plug in "Social Media" into the Wikipedia search bar and press enter, Wikipedia will bring up the page for social media immediately.Be advised, however, Wikipedia's internal search bar does not account for nor correct spelling errors, like a Google search will. It will instead offer suggestions for corrected spellings on another page.
Disambiguation Pages: When dealing with topics where there may be multiple pages with the same or similar names, Wikipedia offers links to "disambiguation" pages to help you refine your search. These pages contain categorized links to nearly every other page in Wikipedia's database that shares a name with or may be related to your current page. For example: the disambiguation page for "Sparrow." It contains links to pages for the various species of sparrow, for people (real and fictional) named Sparrow, technologies named after the sparrow, media properties containing the word "sparrow," and ships named Sparrow.
Further Reading: Below the list of references for the article, often Wikipedia will add a section titled Further Reading. This contains a list of books and articles on the same subject. Often, these references are styled in MLA citation format, allowing you to easily locate relevant data in said books and articles.
Sister Projects: Wikipedia has a number of sister projects that contain more specific information through the Wikimedia project. For example Wikiquote is a database of quotes related to your subject. Wikinews has relevant news articles and Wikimedia Commons is a database of images licensed for fair use under Creative Commons (see below). Wikisource has links to academic articles and databases with relevant articles to your topic as well. For more information on searching academic journals, please visit Searching Academic Databases on this wiki.
YouTube
Google-style search: YouTube's internal search engine operates on a similar set of rules to its parent site, Google's. It responds to keywords and brings up what its algorithms judge to be relevant videos to your search, displaying the results on a refinable page. If your subject doesn't produce the results you are looking for, there are filter options similar to Google's own filters that appear under the search bar. There you are given various options to refine your search and find the video your are looking for.As you can clearly see above, searching YouTube for "social media" nets roughly 1.18 million results. To narrow your results you can specify parameters such as how long ago the video was uploaded, whether you would like to see individal videos or entire channels (user pages) or playlists of videos, and running times. You can also structure your results by upload date, popularity, ratings, ect.
Just don't get Rick Roll'd.
Blogs and Forums
General Search Engines: As mundane as it may seem these days, the best resources for finding and searching through blogs and forums are through simple search engines queries. A fool-proof strategy for finding relevant blogs or forums is it use keyword searches in search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo!. Enter your topic keyword, followed by a comma and the name or domain name of major blogging site (LiveJournal, Tumblr, Wordpress, and Blogger are currently the four most widely used blogging services), and the search engine's optimization algorithm will produce targeted results which you can refine even further from there.As you can see in the image above, the search for "harry potter, livejournal" produces results from the blogging service LiveJournal, specifically blogs related to J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter book (and film) series. Results are usually ordered in terms of the most popular and/or most recently updated blogs.
Internal Search Engines: Nearly every blogging site has its own internal search engine set up specifically to produce results from within its own database. These internalized search engines function like hybrids of the Google and Wikipedia search engines, using simple keyword searches to produce lists of blogs or blog communities. They vary in terms of their scalability and features, however. Wordpress also does not have an internal search feature, while Blogger's is only accessible to registered and logged in users.
Creative Commons Licence Types
Creative Commons Licences and Websites
Creative Commons is a type of copyright license that allows you to use images, video, music, writing, or other data for non-profit purposes. Usually found on user-generated content, Creative Commons licenses claim to balance copyright laws with the realities of the Internet. Creative Commons licensed content is free-to-use by anyone, and can be used as supplementary data or source material for research projects, with appropriate attributions and citations, of course. You can learn more about the various types of Creative Commons licenses and their uses on their license page.Many of the images used on this page, for example, are licensed under the Creative Commons "Attribution Non-Commercial" licence. The circular icons used in the header image were provided by Veodesign while the button images with social media logos were provided by sawb.
Search Creative Commons: The Creative Commons website has a built-in search feature that lets you search social media websites for user-generated free-to-use content for use in your research.
How to Cite Social Media Data
When citing social media data in academic reports, follow these examples based on the various types of social media you are are employing as data. We will be highlighting only the Modern Language Association (MLA) and American Psychological Association (APA) citation formats, as they are the two most widely used citation styles in modern universities. For information Chicago Manual of Style citation format, please consult the CMoS website.
Facebook
APA:MLA:
Twitter
APA:MLA:
Wikipedia
APA:MLA:
YouTube
APA:MLA:
Blogs
APA:MLA:
For information on citing other sources of social media see:
APA: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/10/
MLA: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/
Other Social Media Resources
Here are some additional social media services that might be of help to you as you conduct your research online. These sites may not be as large or well known as Facebook, Twitter, or Wikipedia, but they are no less valuable sources of data for you to explore in your research.
Reddit
Billing itself as the "front page of the Internet," Reddit is a large-scale online community website modeled after the old-style Internet message boards that were popular during the late 90’s and early 00’s. The site is divided into many “sub-Reddits,” each dedicated to a particular topic. Popular sub-Reddits include r/Politics, r/Pics, and r/Gaming—subforums dedicated to, as their names might suggest, political discussion, photography, and video games. Reddit is a great source for both ethnographic and human interest data, as well as for tracking social trends and reaction to breaking news events.Reddit is known for both its free-wheeling discussion and as a source of community information and involvement. The site has popularized the “Ask Me Anything” or “AMA”-style threads. AMAs are question and answer threads where a person with something of interest to discuss will post responses to questions from the Reddit community. Many celebrities have used AMAs to connect with fans, promote upcoming projects, or simply to discuss topics of general interest to others. You can find a list of the top 500 AMAs here on the Reddit Blog.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a social media site geared towards developing your career. The site operates on the axiom, “it’s not what you know, but who you know.” Your LinkedIn profile functions like a combination of a digital business card and resume. You can build connections to professionals in various fields. For research purposes, you can use LinkedIn to examine who is doing what in what field of expertise and then get in contact with them for possible interviews or expert testimony to back up your research data.Pinterest
Pinterest is an imageboard service that lets users link to various websites using images as digital posters or advertisements. You can search through thousands of images to get both visual and textual data for your research. Many images on Pinterest are free-to-use under Creative Commons, as well.Tumblr
Tumblr is a microblogging service similar to Wordpress. Its key feature is its interactivity, however. Much like Reddit and Twitter, Tumblr users can conduct discussions with one another through their Tumblrs and share images and text with others. Tumblr has become the go-to blogging service for many artists. Finding visual data for research is easy with Tumblr by using hashtag keywords like you would on Twitter. Be warned, however, while a lot of content on Tumblr is licensed under Creative Commons, much of it is not. Be sure to contact the owner of the Tumblr and get their permission before using any of their material in your research.
Flickr
Operated by Yahoo!, Flickr is an image-hosting service that lets users place highly detailed images online for sharing with others, or for private usage. Like Tumblr and Pinterest, Flickr supports Creative Commons licenses, but as mentioned already, always contact the original owner of the image for permission before using their data in your research. Flickr has its own internal search engine which is also capable of searching specifically for Creative Commons-licensed images and searching through the Getty Images database for royalty-free stock photos.MySpace, once king of the realm of social media, has declined in popularity since the rise of Facebook. However, in recent years it has reformatted itself into a haven for artists and musicians thanks to an effort spearheaded by Justin Timberlake. On MySpace you can find both musical data and information on bands and musicians, as well as have a direct connection to the artists themselves—a great resource of if you are doing research on the music industry and independent media. Much like Flickr and Twitter, MySpace has both an internal search feature and a trending panel to help you search through its database for relevant information.
Good luck, and happy searching!
anecdotal findings that back up larger points expressed by ‘hard’ data.